Article re US testing21 Feb 2020 15:47
POLITICO
HEALTH CARE
Problems with CDC coronavirus test delay expanded U.S. screening
The delay could impede the U.S. government’s ability to detect scattered cases before they snowball into larger outbreaks.
CDC Building
CDC headquarters in Atlanta. | Jessica McGowan/Getty Images
By DAVID LIM
02/20/2020 05:11 PM EST
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Problems with a coronavirus test developed by the CDC have delayed the Trump administration's efforts to expand screening to state and local public health labs, more than two weeks after the FDA granted permission to distribute the CDC test nationwide.
Only three of the more than 100 public health labs across the country have verified the CDC test for use, according to the Association of Public Health Laboratories.
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The delay has also hampered CDC’s plan to screen samples collected by its national flu-surveillance network for the coronavirus, according to Peter Kyriacopoulos, APHL's senior director of public policy. CDC hopes to use public health labs in Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle to screen samples that test negative for the flu and other common respiratory viruses for the coronavirus.
CDC confirmed the problems with the coronavirus test, and with using its flu-surveillance network to screen for the virus. But the agency declined to answer further questions on the matter.
The delay in establishing additional screening capacity could impede the U.S. government’s ability to detect scattered cases before they snowball into larger outbreaks, former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told POLITICO.
“By that point, it may be harder to contain spread, and we'll be forced to rely on mitigation tactics to just limit the impact of the virus," he said.
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More than 75,000 cases of coronavirus infection have been confirmed globally as of Thursday, and more than 2,100 people have died, according to the World Health Organization. The vast majority of cases are in China, where the virus first emerged, although countries such as Japan, South Korea and Iran are also battling local outbreaks.
In the United States, efforts to expand use of the CDC test have struggled after one of the three reagents upon which the test depends delivered inconclusive results during quality checks, said Kelly Wroblewski, APHL's director of infectious diseases. Samples that test positive at any of the three labs are still being sent to CDC for retesting.
CDC has not told public health labs when it will distribute a second version of the diagnostic test, Wroblewski said. That has left many labs struggling to decide if it is worth continuing to pursue verification of the current version, because they will have to go through the process again once the CDC revises its testing procedure, she added.
Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters on Feb. 14 that the public health a
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